I’m Ready to Love Gu-Gu LULU

/ Homicidol Maniac

It took a little while to prep, but new Aqbi idols Gu-Gu LULU made their debut on Sunday. I was leery, I’ll admit; though Tanaka-san has a great track record with his projects, nobody bats 1.000, and some combination of the name and what I thought might be a draw toward that emerging weird-for-the-sake-of-it slice of idol had me backed off, expecting something potentially cool but also potentially off-putting.

Video from the debut was on the Internet faster than … well, very fast, and I was gratified to see that my fears were unfounded, and this is a group that’s going to be fun to follow:

Here’s a reverse angle, if you wanted one:

A little note from the composer!

It’s such a small sample, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t totally down with this throwback fusion sound. The bass is so funky! Color me very much supporting that not only are these songs that you could have heard from Bellring Girls Heart, but they’re beyond that, too, a smidge outside of conventional expectations, and beyond the realms of MIGMA SHELTER as well. That’s more a healthy, positive sign for AqbiRec than it is indicative of anything specific to Gu-Gu LULU, but still pretty important, I think, as only the grossest of wota are going to stan for multiple effectively identical entities from the same company.

I also think it’s neat that Aqbi — or maybe Ayano as an individual — became a castoff chika idol refuge of sorts. It was good to see that Hachi found a home after LDID; it was better, personally, to see that Guso Drop’s Anna, a person who I expected to fade away from idol, didn’t just persevere, but connected with probably the biggest and best-organized entity in the chika scene.

Looking forward to more! I also hope that CLOCK & BOTAN will continue and grow, too. Ayano is a genuinely talented person who could probably make a lot of things work for her if given enough of the right opportunity.